On its face, this doesn't make sense: Why would advertisers pay
more to get less?

The usual explanation is to do with supply and demand. Although
TV's numbers may be dwindling, it still has a massive audience.
And with the fragmentation of the audience across thousands of
different online and digital venues, there remain very few
vehicles who can reliably deliver eyeballs in the millions, night
after night. The supply of big audiences is getting smaller, in
other words, and thus prices increase.

But there are signs that this won't last, and that broadcast TV
may be facing a crisis.
The Times said:

"The networks are getting picked at from every direction," said
Jessica Reif Cohen, the senior media analysts at Bank
of AmericaMerrill
Lynch. "This year was the tipping point," she said, "when the
television ratings really fell apart."

Put that together with competition from Aereo, which reroutes
free, over-the-air broadcast signals onto computers and iPads
where people can watch TV without paying for cable.
News Corp. has already said it will stop broadcasting Fox TV,
and go cable-only, if it cannot extract transmission fees from
Aereo. (Most people watch "broadcast" TV on cable or satellite,
where stations get fees from subscribers.)

It's not just Aereo of course. It's Hulu and
YouTube
and Netflix
and a hundred other alternatives to watching TV.

Think about that: The model is so broken that a major broadcaster
has threatened to stop broadcasting in order to save itself.

It begs the question: With declining audiences, and dozens of new
ways to watch shows without paying for cable, how long with these
$10 billion meetings last?